Obergefell v. Hodges
A step in the right direction for LGBT rights.
Back in March, Tim Cook wrote an editorial on the the recent wave of pro-discrimination “religious freedom” laws emerging in various portions of the country. Therein, he argued that:
This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human beings. Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, it’s time for all of us to be courageous.
I give him, and Apple, tremendous credit for taking this position publicly. It was inspiring to see the head of a corporation be willing to take a stand that risked alienating some potential (albeit bigoted) customers in order to do the right thing.
A few months later, Jeb Bush apparently decided that his father’s middling and brother’s terrible presidencies hadn’t done enough damage to his family name. Echoing the beliefs of his fellow Republican running mates, he said that the only people capable of “loving their children with their heart and soul” are heterosexuals. According to him, gay couples aren’t able to provide the “committed family life” necessary to sustain our country.
At that time, I wondered why on earth we are still having this debate. Do these bigots not see that they are on the wrong side of history, to say nothing of basic human decency? It’s clear to me, and every other rational human being, that gay people deserve the same rights as everyone else and are just as capable of being parents. In fact, given the inherent challenges that they must overcome, one could argue that gay couples are all the more committed to parenthood and their children.
While I’m a liberal with a strong belief in the separation of church and state, I am also a Christian who is reasonably conversant with the Bible. When people invoke Leviticus to condemn homosexuality, I think of Matthew 7:12:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
To me, this has always meant — in admittedly much less eloquent language — that you shouldn’t be a dick. Instead, you should treat other people the way you’d like to be treated. As I understand it, the golden rule includes accepting that your freedom to practice your religion doesn’t extend to taking away other people’s freedom to love who they want.
It seemed to me then, as it does now, about time to stop the national gay bashing party and move onto real issues like income inequality and student debt. Because if the middle class evaporates, the “committed family life” for which conservatives like Gov. Bush pine so fondly is going by the wayside, and it will have had nothing to do with gay parents.
Which leads us today, when the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, summed up the holding nicely:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
So basically, all human beings are…human. The language of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause seems clear enough to me on this issue. Gay or straight, we’re all human beings, and we all experience the fundamentals of love and commitment in the same way. The law needs to treat us as the equals we are.
Obergefell is a good decision for those of us in favor of LGBT rights, as well as those of us who are fans of human progress generally. For, in the words of Thomas Jefferson:
[L]aws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind…We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
I’d like to believe that the decision hints that the Roberts Court might be tamping down on its absurdity and embracing a bit of rationalism. But given the 5–4 split, I’m not so sure. And I have even less confidence that we’ve moved past the “religious freedom” and “traditional family” nonsense. Still, with such a resounding endorsement of equality from our highest court, this is the kind of day I feel proudest to be an American.
